On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Carlberg Jones wrote:
> There are hundreds of collections of bel canto songs out there, most of
> them great for playing on the horn. Pick your voice range. Read in C and
> you have the piano accompaniment, or read in whatever other key if it's for
> personal pleasure.
Indeed yes! I list below various song collections that are generally
available in college music stores. They are all available with included
CD of piano accompaniment, or cassette tape; all cost about $15-$20 US.
They are wonderful for inspiring practice sessions, recital encores,
gift-giving.
All the books listed below are written for singers, therefore, they are in
the key of C. Some are available in "Low Voice" (or "Medium Low Voice")
or "High Voice". The low voice versions run about a 3rd or 4th below the
high voice versions. I always get the low voice versions, as the high
ones often go too high - maybe c3, d3, if you transpose up a 5th to C
rather than down a 4th. Even then, many songs sit better on horn when
they are transposed down. With maybe one exception that I've seen, none
of the books have a separable solo voice part, so you have the
inconvenience of turning pages, unless you sit with a live pianist.
"26 Italian Songs and Arias", Alfred pub., and
"24 Italian Songs and Arias", Schirmer. Almost identical contents.
"Italian Arias of the Baroque and Classical Eras", Alfred pub. (26 songs)
'Favorite German Art Songs', Hal Leonard. Includes 'An Die Musik' by
Schubert - worth the price of the book all by itself, but there are also
other gems within.
'Canto Gregoriano' - The Essential Collection of Gregorian Chant, pub.
Novello Publishing, Ltd. Contains all the chants from the popular Spanish
CD 'Chant'. The chants tend to run so flat that you will probably want to
transpose to about B rather than C, and you will also be faced with
unusual musical notations.
Hal-Leonard publishes a Mozart Aria series, all of which are superb for
horn. There is a book for each of Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, Tenor,
Bass-Baritone (bass clef!) There is no choice of key. There is enough
meterial in just the tenor book to build your own Mozart horn concerto -
allegro, adagio, rondo movements.
Folk Songs, two volumes; Alfred pub., and Folk Songs for Two Singers
(accompanied horn duets!)
Gilbert & Sullivan Arias - several collections - for Soprano, Mezzo, Tenor
- these have full orchestra accompaniment, not piano.
I mentioned the book for Enya, "Shepherd Moons" a few days ago. If you
have a favorite CD that cries out for you to play along, check for the
existence of a book that has all the songs from the CD. You can do this
on the internet. They generally will have piano accompaniment and guitar
chords.
There are other fine collections available, and some that are not so fine.
In any case, consider the problem of finding beautiful horn music for
public performance and rewarding practice sessions solved.
In a slightly different category are tons of trio sonatas, all scored for
two soprano instruments and basso continuo; composed by greats like
Telemann, Vivaldi, Stamitz, Quantz,... Many of these can be handled by
two horns; others lend themselves to one horn (on the 2nd line) and a more
agile instrument above. The basso parts usually sound fine when played by
a bassoon. This is a vast literature of something like concertos for two
horns - real mainstream music. I don't have specific pieces before me
just now, but if anyone is interested in knowing some trii that fit for 1
or 2 horns, email me.
{ David Goldberg: [EMAIL PROTECTED] }
{ Math Dept, Washtenaw Community College }
{ Ann Arbor Michigan }
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